Related Stories

Second Sight will be shaking up your playlists on Oct. 21. Hey Rosetta!'s fourth studio release is the band's first full-length album since 2011's Seeds.

“We’ve certainly been waiting to put new music out for quite some time,” said Adam Hogan, guitarist for the St. John's-based band. He and bassist Josh Ward dropped in to CBC studios Aug. 12 to share what’s in store for the now seven-piece band.

Kintsukuroi is the first single released from the 12-track album. Hogan said when the song was recorded and finished, “Management and everyone were just like, really? This is what the title is? This is not going to make anyone happy.”

“Maybe we just wanted to have a title that was impossible for the average person to pronounce,” said Ward, and described the concept as “the ancient Japanese method of repairing pottery and vases using precious metals. When you break something and you mend it with gold you improve it.”

“That’s a Tim thing," said Hogan of the band's frontman and writer, Tim Baker. “It's about a relationship and applying this particular kind of metaphor to a relationship.”

Kintsukuroi was recorded months after the end of the production process. Hey Rosetta! had originally recorded what they thought was a completed album in December 2013.

“We did the record that we thought everyone would enjoy; part of the plan from our management camp was to have a single to release to radio," said Ward.

“It’s always the plan. We just never have those songs on the record; when everything clocks in it all seems to be at least upwards of five minutes or more, and radio doesn’t like to play that stuff," Hogan said.

Their four-to-six-minute length songs didn’t meet radio-friendly requirements for their record label. Ward said that “Tim, God bless him, took it upon himself to go into his bedroom and just try, with a goal in mind of coming up with something that we could all be happy with but would also be acceptable for radio play."

With new tunes to look forward to on Second Sight the guys were asked which ones were their favourites from the upcoming album. Hogan jumped between three; first Alcatraz and Neon Beyond, but he and Ward both settled on What Arrows. You can catch a taste of that one on their album teaser video

Going in to the studio, Hogan said, was a pretty natural process in the way the song came together.

"(It was the) loose concept of what the thing was going to be, and it seemed less planned and happened in real life, in the studio, in real time," said Ward. "Generally when we walk into the studio we’ve already spent so many hours on every song, flipped them upside down and started over again; built them up and torn them apart. So when we got to that one it just happened.”

We’ll just have to wait to decide for ourselves.

Second Sight was recorded in Montreal at Le Lab studios with producer Marcus Pacquin. Hey Rosetta! has announced an upcoming American tour with Montreal synth-pop band Stars in November.